Abstract [en]

A common viewpoint in both academia and industry is that that Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification (VV&UQ) of simulation models are vital activities for a successful deployment of model-based system engineering. In the literature, there is no lack of advice regarding methods for VV&UQ. However, for industrial applications available methods for Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) often seem too detailed or tedious to even try. The consequence is that no UQ is performed, resulting in simulation models not being used to their full potential.

In this paper, the effort required for UQ of a detailed aircraft vehicle system model is estimated. A number of methodological steps that aim to achieve a more feasible UQ are proposed. The paper is focused on 1‑D dynamic simulation models of physical systems with or without control software, typically described by Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) or Differential Algebraic Equations (DAEs). An application example of an aircraft vehicle system model is used for method evaluation.

Abstract [en]

The aeronautical industry is becoming increasingly reliant on Modeling and Simulation (M&S) for use throughout all system development phases, for system verification, and end-user training. To justify and to utilize the full potential of today’s model-based approach, the development of efficient and industrially applicable methods for credibility assessment of M&S efforts is a key challenge.

This work addresses methods facilitating credibility assessment of simulation models and simulator applications used in aircraft system development. For models of individual aircraft subsystems, an uncertainty aggregation method is proposed that facilitates early model validation through approximate uncertainty quantification. The central idea is to integrate information obtained during component level validation directly into the component equations, and to utilize this information in model level uncertainty quantification.

In addition to methods intended for models of individual subsystems, this work also proposes a method and an associated tool for credibility assessment of large-scale simulator applications. As a complement to traditional document-centric approaches, static and dynamic credibility information is here presented to end-users directly during simulation. This implies a support for detecting test plan deficiencies, or that a simulator configuration is not a suitable platform for the execution of a particular test. The credibility assessment tool has been implemented and evaluated in two large-scale system simulators for the Saab Gripen fighter aircraft. The work presented herein also includes an industrially applicable workflow for development, validation, and export of simulation models.